The modern communications era has brought about a tremendous expansion of wireline and wireless networks. Computer networks, television networks, and telephony networks are experiencing an unprecedented technological expansion, fueled by consumer demand. Wireless and mobile networking technologies have addressed related consumer demands, while providing more flexibility and immediacy of information transfer.
Current and future networking technologies continue to facilitate ease of information transfer and convenience to users. In order to provide easier or faster information transfer and convenience, telecommunication industry service providers are developing improvements to existing networks.
Some evolving wireless and mobile networking technologies, such as of the universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) terrestrial radio access network (UTRAN), provide for the assignment of dual uplink carriers to mobile terminal devices, such as a user equipment (UE) device, which may utilize two uplink carriers provided that the mobile terminal is dual carrier capable. However, use of dual uplink carriers by a mobile terminal may presently prove problematic.
In this regard, a mobile terminal may be power limited and have to share its transmission power among both uplink carriers if it transmits on both carriers simultaneously. Thus, when a power limited mobile terminal approaches its total maximum transmission power, the mobile terminal may need to take some action to reduce the transmission power of at least one of the carriers. Otherwise, the mobile terminal may face a loss of one or both uplink carriers due to exceeding the total transmission power capability of the mobile terminal. Based upon current networking standards, mobile terminals may not be configured to intelligently determine what action to take to reduce transmission power consumption when operating two uplink carriers with total transmission power for the two uplink carriers approaching or reaching the total maximum transmission power of a respective mobile terminal. Further, allocation of data rates to an uplink carrier, such as through Transport Format Combination (TFC) and/or Enhanced Transport Format Combination (E-TFC) selection, by a mobile terminal may be complicated through the use of dual uplink carriers by the mobile terminal.
Accordingly, it may be advantageous to provide methods, apparatuses, and computer program products for prioritizing uplink carriers in computing devices such that computing devices may intelligently implement power scaling and/or allocate data rates to an uplink carrier in dual uplink carrier scenarios.